Indigenous Languages as Preservers of Indigenous Knowledge in Zimbabwe

Paper presented at the First Annual Conference of the Faculty of Communication and Information Science at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Zimbabwe on Indigenous Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Africa, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 23 ? 24 August, 2011,The interrelationship between Indigenous languages and knowledge is both schematic and formal. It requires a high degree of generalisation and is usually steeped into the dichotomy of whether indigenous languages precede indigenous knowledge. In other words, can there be indigenous knowledge without indigenous language? This is a controversial interrelationship that usually raises more questions than answers; however, learned opinion favours a positive answer. Indigenous languages are an intangible heritage that predetermine and preserve for posterity, indigenous knowledge. Libraries should provide those with verbal fluency and political power, retentive memories and intimate knowledge of poetic forms space to document their intellect for posterity